Child of Light is an artistic, turn based, strategy RPG that implements two dimensional graphics in side scrolling fashion. The playable character is capable of free flight throughout the world, and combat is heavily based on a timeline system and the associated interruption mechanic. Interestingly, all the dialog for the entire game is written in rhyme.
The first thing that you notice about Child of Light is the music. Beautiful. Not just good music though, it is of the particular style that we appreciate most, music that is very emotional and produces a very strong melody. Some music seems to lose its tact or delicacy in an impressive conglomeration of elaborate grandeur, not that this isn't sometimes due, but what Child of Light achieved was what we believe should come first, music with powerful emotion. One of our common standards for a good tune is that you should be able whistle it easily enough. I can assure you I have been whistling these songs frequently since playing this game.
The second thing you notice about Child of Light is the graphics. Almost everything in the game is hand drawn and painted, giving it a pleasant and unique aesthetic that you enjoy the whole game through. The ability to free fly in the game becomes enjoyable for the purpose of soaking up as much of the wonderfully detailed murals that comprise the environment as you possibly can.
The third majorly noted component of this title is the dialog, which is rhymed the whole way through. This is perhaps the most unique thing about the entire game. It's difficult to determine how much value this decision added to the game. Uniqueness adds some value in and of itself, and under some circumstances it could add humor or character to certain conversations, but in contrast, the limitations in vocabulary could cause an unnatural flow of speech or zap some of the emotion out of the more intense moments too. Undoubtedly what they accomplished was impressive, but the unfortunate truth is that it may have been better without the excessive rhyming.
We found the battle gameplay to be rather unique from other strategy games we've played, due to a timeline that tracks various characters' speeds. The primary method of battle is to time your attacks so that your opponent will be interrupted. This was fun mostly for something different, but it had its limitations. Let's just say that the mechanics worked well for a standalone title, but if you were planning on having a series of games, you would probably have to mix up the physics a bit in each one for battles to remain interesting.
As far as story line goes, the plot is good, if not particularly complex, and the myriad of characters that join you in your adventure are well crafted, both in physical appearance as well as personality. You become closely attached to these characters, so seeing what their fate will be is the greatest motivation for continuing play. A strange part of the story involved letters and poetry written by unfamiliar persons that you find throughout the course of the game. They seem to suggest a larger back-story of some sort, but after finishing the game, some of it still seems totally unrelated, which was slightly disappointing. Maybe they were planning a sequel?
Our most major problems with this game came from some of the most unexpected sources. The first problem was simply that the narration and in-game dialogue boxes were too quickly said or displayed. The opening narrated poem was part of the game trailer, and it sounded amazing there, but for some inexplicable reason, in the opening it was read at such a quickened pace that nearly all of its effect was removed. The same was true of the rest of the narration. In game dialogue boxes had a similar issue. They were already a bit more challenging to read because of the rhyming and unusual sentence patterns, and yet they flashed by too quick to read at times, or even on top of each other! This could have been easily remedied by simply requiring a button press to continue the dialogue at your own pace, so it's very unfortunate because it had such a large ranging and significant impact on the story's composition.
Another issue was actually due to artwork. While virtually every other piece of art in the game is perfect, a change of the main character's appearance mid-game really put us off. She just didn't look quite right anymore, also losing the facial expressions you had become enamored with. Gratefully her appearance is again changed near game end, and corrections are made that bring back the character you love, but you're given very little time to enjoy this before the game is over.
This is a game that is an interesting mix of incredible art and music, a good story with endearing characters, but a few flaws that no matter how hard we tried to ignore them, their effect was irremovable. Child of Light will undoubtedly be remembered very fondly far into the future, it was actually the fact that it was so enjoyable that its few flaws were so hard to accept. We rate Child of Light 8/10.